The Other Half
by Paisley the Flowergirl
Summary: In 1899, Joseph Pulitzer had two daughters, but neither was a spunky girl journalist named Katherine. This is a *historically accurate* version of what may have happened when the Pulitzer daughters encounter everyone's favorite newsboys- and the escapades therein.
1. Chapter 1

When I heard that the character of Katherine Plumber was Pulitzer's daughter in the Newsies musical, I smelled something fishy and trotted on down to the library (naw son, just googled it) and looked up the family of the actual Joseph Pulitzer. The man did indeed have three daughters (one of whom had died by July 1899), but none were named Katherine, and none were spunky girl reporters. I was stirred by these findings to pound out this little trifle exploring the REAL daughters of J. Pulitzer; while some (rather more than some) artistic liberties have been taken in ascribing to them personalities, I have used the meager sources available to me to patch together a shoddy little story describing their ABSOLUTELY FICTITIOUS exploits, all based somewhat in history. If you wanna check my sources, shoot me a message and GOOD SIR, I will supply you with sources.

(This is not to say that I myself disapprove of the Newsies musical, or really of Katherine Plumber- I just object to her being JP's daughter. I mean, really, Mr. Fierstein? Jack's new love interest is the historically-inaccurate daughter of his greatest enemy, in disguise? What is this, some bad fanfiction written by a thirteen-year-old girl? But I digress.)

Well THIS is a fanfiction (I shan't remark on its quality), so WHATEVA WHATEVA I DO WHAT I WANT.

**I don't own the Newsies, nor their movie, nor their musical; I don't own the Pulitzers, although these incarnations of the Pulitzer children are indeed mine. Now it's showtime, R&R and all that poppycock what what.**

August 11, 1899

Now I first saw Jack Kelly in the morning paper, around a month ago. It was July. The headline came with coffee and toast on my breakfast tray, and I remember almost spilling the scalding drink over my lacy white sheets as I leaned in closer to get a good look at the photo of a group of newsies, hamming it up for a portrait by some unknown photographer.

**Newsies Stop The World.**

His face peered out at me between columns on the Hague Convention and the Dreyfus Affair. They all looked so innocent, so happy; I could hardly believe that they were the cause of father's headache of the week.

The older ones looked rather dashing.

Granted, I wouldn't have seen it at all, but I had recently adopted father's habit of scanning daily every newspaper printed in the city. The New York World, of course, was the ultimate authority on everything, the veritable word of God. It gave me a little glow of pride whenever I read one of father's letters from the publisher, or recognized in an article some point that we had discussed over dinner. Father owned The World.

The World had stopped.

But not for good. All that ended a week ago, when the distribution price of papers was returned to its original two-fer-a-penny, and father had come home angry. Still, it was not but a minor skirmish lost in the circulation wars against Hearst's New York _Journal,_ and father was still confident that we would emerge victorious in the end.

All of this mattered little to me. I was Edith Pulitzer, seventeen, healthy, wealthy, and bored.

"_Bert!_"

My youngest brother hardly registered that he had heard my hiss, and leaned even further out of the carriage window.

"Herbert Pulitzer! Get back inside _now!_" when Bert failed to comply, I hauled him back from the window by his suspenders.

"What d'ya have to do _that_ for?" he whined, crossing his arms petulantly and scowling.

"You cannot simply drive down Broadway leaning out of the Pulitzer carriage like some kind of _roughneck,_" I sniffed. "It's uncivilized."

"What were you looking at?" asked Constance, suspiciously. She was fifteen, that age where she was perfectly torn between berating twelve-year-old Bert and using the opportunity of my distraction to lean out the other side and take a gander.

"Just the newsies," grumped Herbert.

"Newsies!" the latter side clearly won out, and Constance bounced to the window to look.

"We passed 'em."

"Them," I annunciated. "THem."

Herbert was silent.

"Say it, Bert."

"_Thhhhhhhhhem,_" he lisped, before slouching back on the cushions.

"I wonder if you saw Jack Kelly," sighed Constance reverentially, sliding off of her elbows and resting a cheek on the sill.

"Strike leader Jack Kelly!" joined in Herbert, punching the air in immaterial protest. He, the littlest son of the biggest newspaperman in New York, had developed the mannerism of parroting headlines _ad nauseum. _

Come to think of it, he's make a good newsie himself.

The carriage rolled to a stop, and I took a deep breath. "We're here," I sighed, stating the obvious. The carriage door swung open, and the sounds and smells of New York Harbor rushed inside.

The ride back was subdued. Nobody leant out the windows, and not a single Kelly was mentioned from the docks to Midtown.

We had just bid _bon voyage_ to the rest of the family- mother, father, our brothers Ralph and Joe, and the Wickhams, the family of Joe's fiancée, Eleanor. Handkerchiefs awaft in the sticky air, we had waved them southeast in search of bracing sea air and respite from the smoke and noise of New York on the family yacht, the _Liberty._ The yearly farewells at our private mooring always served as a reminder that summer was coming to a close and soon I would be speeding North in my own Pullman car, ready to complete my final year at a young ladies' conservatory Upstate.

I was mired in these musings when we drew to a halt in front of the imposing 73rd street mansion that the Pulitzers called home. I snapped back to reality, catching the tail end of Constance and Herbert's conversation. They were speaking of newsies.

"Don't you two ever tire of those crass newsboys?" I sighed, irritable in the August heat.

"Never!" proclaimed Bert, throwing open the carriage door before the coachman could hold it open for us.

_Crunch!_

Carriage doors were not supposed to go crunch, nor were they supposed to jar the entire carriage on impact or let out a spine-tickling moan of pain.

We piled out of the coach as if chased by a bat out of hell and peered around the door.

We had hit a person.

We had hit a _newsie._

The boy couldn't have been more than twelve, Bert's age, with a dark complexion and a babyface.

"I'll be fine, really," the boy was telling the coachman, dazed. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing. The boy reached a hand back to adjust his newsboy cap. When he looked down at his palms after, they were dripping red.

The newsie let out a faint shriek and toppled back over onto the cobblestones of 73rd, out like a light and suddenly the responsibility of one Edith Pulitzer.


	2. Chapter 2

Dear Readers, thank you for all of the lovely reviews! They make my heart go pitty-pat.

(If you want to read about history, mathematical mistakes, and smart reviewers picking up my slack, read directly below! If you just want to get to the story, skip down a wee bit until after the disclaimer. Kthnxbai.)

As the most astute of you (illegiblescrawl and Jemma, I be lookin' at you) have observed, my ages for Edith, Constance, and Herbert are off, and yes indeed, y'all clearly have me beat in the research department. By way of explanation, let me plead for your ears by whining that I didn't come across documentation of their official birthdates until Scrawl brought to my attention the Pfaff biography of Joseph Pulitzer II. So, I am in fact four years ahead of myself here, but I will write it off as an artistic liberty, as at least one of our young ladies _must_ be old enough to develop a legitimate crush on a newsie. This is fanfiction, after all. ;)

Another excellent point is that there actually WAS a Katherine Pulitzer Jr… just like the character in the musical! However, she died (of typhoid, I believe) at the age of two; still, I retract my criticism of Mr. Fierstein, as -who knows- he may have written her character under the supposition that KP2 had lived. She would have been 17. And maybe she would have been a spunky girl reporter.

SO, long story short, just bear in mind that I have made a grave error in timelining. The year is 1899, but the Pulitzer children have mysteriously travelled forwards and then back again, and Edith, Constance, and Herbert are 17, 15, and 8, respectively. NOW, problems rectified, we shall investigate what has become of poor little Boots!

**I do not own any newsies, musicals, or movies. If I did I would be one wealthy little monkey. I have taken gross artistic liberties with the actual historical characters of the Pulitzer children; however, I do not own them either. Do keep reading and critiquing and all of that bidness!**

I woke up the next morning earlier than usual, squirmed through my daily process of being dressed, and bolted down to the spare room where we were keeping the hurt newsie all before the morning papers were delivered. Being the lady of the house by default, I had done all in my power to see to it that the unconscious urchin was safe- Doctor Guthman, thankfully, had not yet gone to join the group aboard the _Liberty,_ and he and his nurses had looked after the newsboy throughout the night.

I reached the door, where a nurse in blinding white was knitting placidly.

"How's he doing?" I whispered.

"Quite fine!" she exclaimed in a startlingly loud tone. "He came-to about five this morning, and your brother has been entertaining him ever since."

Good lord. Herbert was going to turn into a newsie. He was going native.

After knocking softly, I entered the room to see Herbert perched at the foot of the bed, reading to the newsie from a sizable book of fairytales.

Our guest, upon seeing me, doffed his cap (somehow he had regained the shabby thing, even though the rest of his clothes were being laundered and he was dressed in something borrowed from Bert), and said "Mornin', ma'am."

"Good morning to you, too. How are you feeling?"

"A bit dizzy, but otherwise real good," he replied.

"Edith, this is Boots!" announced Herbert, by way of clumsy introduction. "He fainted because he can't stand the sight of blood."

"Oh!"

Boots rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Your carriage door clocked me pretty good, but I woulda been okay if I hadn't noticed the blood."

"Doctor Guthman says that he's lucky he didn't get a concussion when he hit his head on the sidewalk," added Herbert.

"I should say so," I shuddered. I had lost too many siblings and classmates not to get gooseflesh whenever someone scraped by the grave with such a tight margin. I brushed the feeling off. "How did you come by 'Boots?'" I asked, by way of lightening the mood.

"Used to be a shoeshine boy, before I joined the newsies," Boots replied. "That and my real name's _Arvid._ Nobody who wasn't crazy would go by Arvid, if he could help it."

"Arvid is a distinguished name!" I protested. "But at any rate, I am very glad that you're set to rights. Is there anyone we can notify that you're safe?"

Boots thought for a minute. "I'd best be gettin' back to the lodging house, soon as I can," he answered. "The boys might be a bit worried, and maybe I can catch the evening edition and make some money today after all."

"Aww, don't go!" cried Herbert mournfully. It wasn't often that Pulitzer's favorite son got to consort with boys his own age, especially one who got to call himself a newsie.

"Herbert," I said reproachfully, "we don't want Boots' friends to worry about him."

"Yeah, and you can come visit us, Herbie!" Boots exclaimed. He sprang out of bed, surprisingly spry, and looked about for his clothes.

One of the maids, having just recently come in to bring a glass of water, _ahem_ed and said, "I'm quite afraid that your clothes are stained past decency, young man."

"You can have some of mine!" cried Herbert, delighted to do something useful.

Boots brightened too. "You wouldn't happen to have a corduroy suit… with fitted knickers?"

"Betcha I do!"

An hour later, after Boots was dressed in corduroy, fed, and reimbursed for his loss of the morning paper revenue, I found myself trundling through the streets of New York, southbound towards Number 9, Duane street, home of Boots and his newsie brethren. Constance had insisted on coming, late riser though she was; she and Herbert were interrogating Boots at length on the glamorous and dashing life of a New York newsie.

"Tell me about the strike!" squealed Constance, bouncing in her seat, half-baked curls flying hither and thither.

"But he already told me," complained Herbert. "Boots doesn't want to tell it again."

"I don't mind," Boots replied, leaning back in his seat. The little newsie seemed to be in absolute heaven; I suppose that it hadn't occurred to me that he had never before ridden in a carriage, or spent the night in a feather bed, or eaten a four-course breakfast on a service of china that cost more than an entire Midtown block.

"I was there when the strike started," he said pridefully. "I was right at Jack Kelly's elbow when he got up on that statue, right outside the World building, and said-"

-This in a yell-

"_-Pulitzer and Hoist have to respect the rights of the woikin' boys of New York!"_

I guess we three Pulitzer children all took a little jump back at the sound of our surname.

Boots didn't notice.

"And then Davey-"

"Who?"

"David Jacobs, brains o' the operation. He says we gotta be a Union. And I says, 'What stops someone else from sellin' our papes?' I thought up that one, all by myself."

Herbert was enthralled. "How did you stop people from sellin' your… papes?"

"We soaked 'em!" cried Boots, and launched into a detailed account of a battle between the Manhattan newsies and a hired brute squad.

My focus shifted to the streets gliding past my window, but I was jerked back into the carriage by yet again hearing my last name:

"…yeah, Pulitzer hired _a hundred_ mooks to come and bust us up at our rally! Can you believe that? And then he didn't run a word of it in the _World _next day! Not a word! Like it never happened! Like every newsboy in New York didn't come running out of Irving with black eyes and split lips!" Boots shook his head. "We all got worked over pretty bad, though I landed a few solid punches on goons three, four times my size. But what sort of person would just… you know? Just not care about so many people- his own employees, too!"

Constance, Herbert and I exchanged looks. The thought then struck me; it was very possible that Boots didn't realize just who had put him up for the night. He had no idea that he was fraternizing with the progeny of Joseph Pulitzer, king of the _World,_ bane of every newsboy from the Bronx to the Bowery.

I gulped. I hated to bring rain to his day, lived thus far in the light of the sun of good fortune. I made a face at Constance and Herbert that clearly said, _mum's the word._

In due time, we reached the door of No. 9 Duane street, a comfortably slouching house of many stories. It being Sunday, as Boots explained, most of the newsies were observing a welcome day of rest, and were indeed spilling out the windows of the lodging house. Shouts and muffled conversation could be heard from the street. It was a peaceful, somnolent sound, fitting to an August afternoon that baked the streets like one massive hearthstone.

"Well, it was a pleasure meetin' you folks," Boots said humbly, doffing his cap and making a little bow as he stood. "Thank ya' kindly for showin' me how the other half lives. And thanks for the suit!"

"Can we come in?" blurted Herbert, clearly loath to let his newfound friend fade into the social strata so soon.

"Bert-" I began, but Boots cut me off. "Sure you can!" he beamed. "The boys'll love to meet the folks that put me up last night! C'mon!"

Boots and Herbert darted into the house, quickly followed by a giddy Constance. Of course she would want to catch a glimpse at the mysterious, daring, grown-up world of handsome newsboys with crooked smiles that had stood up to father and won.

With a sigh, I lifted my skirts to cross the fetid gutter and stepped inside.

It took my eyes an instant to adjust to the shady interior of number nine. When I had blinked past the sudden darkness, a handful of newsies loafing on the staircase were gawking at we, the mysterious well-dressed interlopers. Quick as a whip they somehow summoned by whispers, prods, and a messenger to the upper floors every blooming newsie in the house, perhaps within a radius of a few miles. Soon the foyer was filled to bursting with hooting, hollering boys, clapping Boots on the back and asking him where he'd been. The pandemonium was threatening to sweep us up like so many dust motes when a hush fell over the room.

I turned to the doorway, where all gazes were suddenly directed, and couldn't help but be drawn to the group that had just come in.

It was as if charisma could seep and curl like mist off the Hudson. This charisma was currently swirling into the foyer, emanating quite directly from a group of boys (or were they men? I wasn't sure how to qualify them) who had just entered. Oh _bother,_ even I of all people recognized them from their shot in the paper.

There was Jack Kelly, right at the prow of the ordeal, flanked by David Jacobs, walking mouth, and Racetrack Higgins, the one whose glib phonetic renderings had been quoted liberally in the article. I felt ridiculous as I subconsciously identified Mush Meyers, muscle; Skittery Kowalski, pessimist; Kid Blink, ladykiller; Crutchy, who spoke for himself and hadn't a last name, as far as I knew; and Bumlets Orozco, the happy one that was always dancing. If I had had time, I would have blushed. As it stood, things moved significantly too fast for me to even think of having to fight a girlish flush.

Cowboy Kelly opened his mouth and the room fell silent. "Who're our guests?" he asked, trademark slurry speech and careless hand gestures flying up into the rafters.

"They put me up for the night!" Boots proclaimed, marching forward. "I got clobbered by a wild carriage door, and these good people nursed me back to health. Now we-" (who was the 'we?') "-wanna give 'em a tour!"

"Ohhhh," Jack said, brightening to see that we weren't just some hoity-toity mugs coming to view a paternalistic project for their spare cash. "Well then, me chums, let's give 'em the royal treatment. What'd you say your names were?"

We hadn't. I gulped.

One thing was as sure as the gold standard and regular as the tides: if Cowboy and co discovered that Pulitzers were among them, nothing short of anarchy would follow.

Number nine, Duane Street, might as well be the Old Brewery at Five Points.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you thank you, my lovely reviewers! Scrawl and Sparkage, you are far too kind. Crabsareamazing and Pen 'n Notebook, I will try my best to meet your expectations!

**I own nothing. I'm just an angry kid with no money. Who isn't angry at all. I am actually rather cheery at the moment.**

I could almost conjure the scared looks that had surely jumped onto the faces of my siblings. _Chin up, old girl, make your move._

I stepped forward. "Edith. And these are my brother and sister, Herbert and Constance." Better to omit certain bites of information that give the man a straight-up lie.

"Charmed." Cowboy Kelly stepped forward, seized my hand, which had been hanging awkwardly at my side, and gave it a light peck. I had to bite down on my right cheek to suppress a nonsensical smile. As he pecked and I gnawed at the inside of my cheek, I gave the assembly of newsies a once-over to see if there were any suspicious looks. I thought I might have caught one out of the corner of my eye, but wisely decided to pay it no mind.

"Can I see the lodging house?" asked Herbert, voice just this side of a squeal.

"Absolutely," Cowboy smiled, shaking Bert's hand. "Come right this way."

And we were off. I trailed directly behind Herbert and Constance, the responsible adult in this situation. My brother and sister were bouncing about in the main group of newsies, firing off questions like birdshot and _oooh_ing and _ahh_ing like they had never seen chipped wainscoting, rusty washbasins, or strewn, tattered breeches and stockings before. I mentally congratulated myself: now those two got to see how the other half lived. No book or Sunday cover story could expose one to the trials faced by the lower classes quite like an experiential trip to the other side of town.

I of course needed no more exposure. I fancied myself already inured to the harsh realities of the city. I was well-read, had gone to various orphanages and hospitals with the Women's Municipal League. I knew how the other half lived. Thus, I tried to keep my face mildly interested, my skirts lifted from the questionable floorboards, and my posture no less ramrodical than usual.

Apparently my malaise was noticeable, because three diminutive newsies tugged at my skirts and began pointing out places of interest in the house. I couldn't help smiling at their antics as they tugged me this way and that, steering me away from rooms "not fit fer a lady's eyes, Miss," and bringing to my attention the nicer portions of the house, like the faded, overstuffed library and the delicious smell coming from the bakery that rented out most of the bottom floor.

"Dining room seats neah two hundred!" piped a tiny newsie with huge brown eyes and a toy sword.

"We have hot and cold water in the baths!" cried another, this one with an orange shirt.

"Do you have hot and cold water in your house, ma'am?"

"Watch your step, Miss, third one up's kinda rickety."

"Don't rush us, Les! We've gotta show her the dude room!"

In said dude room, right off of the main third-floor dormitory, the beds were single and canopied for privacy. The orange newsie was earnestly telling me about how these beds were ten cents per night, and hoity toity fellows (dudes, I surmised), got extra privacy in there. I was navigating my way through the breezing white sheets, ghosting about in the crossbreeze magically summoned through the high windows, when I noticed someone at the door. I turned around just in time to miss what I was sure had been a dubious glance in my direction. Someone had been scrutinizing me, and I hated to think what conclusion he had come to.

We Pulitzers were by no means the toast of the town, but that was not to say that we didn't get our fair share of mentions in the various society columns written about the City gentry. I know that my debutante ball received laudatory press from all corners, generally with at least a quarter-page spread in its honor. We were too nouveau riche to be taken seriously, of course, but we were the poster children of the new money set. After all, wasn't Ralph successfully courting a Vanderbilt? Didn't mother hail from stock as aristocratic as they come? Father was harsh enough to keep us from the bloated opulence of so many of our gilded peers. We toed the line between acceptable and gauche, and that was a story worth mentioning in type every now and again.

It was common knowledge among the more fastidious newspaper readers that Joseph Pulitzer had children named Edith, Constance, and Herbert. Anyone with half a brain could deduce from Boots' description of his accident that the notorious house at 73rd street couldn't be far from the site of his comeuppance.

The tour eventually ended, and I found myself saddled with two excitable siblings to maneuver to the carriage. Every newsie in attendance lined the hall to shake our hands and say their thanks for the generous check I had just made out to the Superintendant- Mr. Kloppman, was it? I pressed silver dollars into the palms of my three sweet little guides as I passed, and received a month's worth of pecks on the hand from those handsome older newsies. I successfully retained my aloof presence of mind, nodding gently and smiling with no more than four teeth showing. When the door shut behind us, I was all at once quite shocked, surprised, and otherwise disbelieving that nothing untoward or even _interesting _had happened. When one is among a raucous union of adolescent males, one expects shouting, pranks, intrigue, romance- not a tame, courteous tour of the premises.

I was, against my will, disappointed.

I shepherded Constance and Herbert, still bubbling over with newsie-related excitement, into to carriage. As the wheels began to roll, Constance seemed to be able to contain herself no longer.

"I got an invitation!"

"What?"

"Look!" Constance thrust a damp piece of newsprint into my hand. Scrawled on it in an already-fading pencil were an address, a date, and a note:

_21 Suffolk St._

_Gardiner Hall_

_7:00 August 3_

_Rally and meeting for the newsboys union. I'll be in the third row. Look for the sign that says Manhattan._

"Who gave this to you?" I demanded, scandalized.

"The one with the eyepatch," Constance sighed. "Kid Blink, I think his name was."

"Boots said I can come too!" joined Bert.

"Absolutely not!" I failed to keep my voice down. "I shan't let the two of you go traipsing off to some rabble-rousing union affair!" When the two tried to protest I silenced them with a look. There would be no more shenanigans of a newsie bent while in New York I remained.

Or so I had decided.

Had I left a listening ear in the foyer of the No. Nine Duane st., I would have heard the following exchange.

After we three philanthropists had rambled out the door, a brief silence enveloped the house as the newsies communally assimilated back to their state of normalcy- that is, just somewhere this side of entropy.

"Do you know who those were?" asked a scandalized David Jacobs.

"Who? Them rich people? Beats the hell outta me," answered Jack, straightening his bandana.

"The Queen of France and her attendants," Skittery remarked sarcastically.

"Jenny Lind. An' Edwin Booth an' Nellie Bly."

"_I_ asked Nellie Bly to the rally Thursday!"

"You son of a gun! Like hell you did!"

"What happened to the Mayor's daughter?"

"The Van Wycks only have two children, dummy. Couldn't have been them."

"Rockefellers, then?"

"Or Morgans!"

"Couldn't be! They were too nice."

"And how do you know?"

"The Pulitzers," David said with an eye roll.

That shut the general murmuring up right quick.

"No!"

"You can't be serious!" snickered Boots. "I just spent the night at Pulitzer's house, rode through town in Pulitzer's carriage, ate Pulitzer's bacon and eggs-"

"And the Pulitzers just got a tour of our house and home," sighed David.

Jack clapped him on the back. "Well me ol' chum, looks like the enemy has beat a hasty retreat back to their fortress on the edge of Central Park. Last we'll be seein' of them."

Boots and Blink, as well as a number of ancillary new friends of Bert and Constance, exchanged shifty lances. Jacky boy was somewhat, to their minds, mistaken.


	4. Chapter 4

Well durn it all, I was initially thinking of just unceremoniously scrapping this little trifle, since I ran off to Santa Fe (metaphorically speaking) for a few weeks and assumed that nobody would be at'all interested in "The Other Half" by the time of my return. However, a certain Vinylscope (as well as Jemma!) have convinced me otherwise, mostly because Vinyl has disabled private messaging on her account, and in order to thank her for her excessive praise (as well as granting me half of Skittery's shirt!) I am forced to write more.

Clever, that.

Vinyl, please enable some private messaging so that I can answer your many intelligent questions.

So here's anuddah chapter. Tell yer friends!

**I'm no snoozer, and I likes livin' chancey, but I do not choose to do so by claiming the newsies as my own. They also won a Tony, and that was not my doing. In case you were curious.**

After the excitement over the newsies, things at 73rd street calmed down considerably. The staff erased any traces of street urchin from the guest bedroom, Herbert learned not to prod me about the rally, and normalcy seeped in with the August heat.

I mistakenly thought that I was clear of the working class.

Two days after the uneventful tour of the boarding house, I found myself in an admittedly gorgeous fern-colored muslin, propped uncomfortably in the carriage of one Douglas Haines Fleming, rumbling opulently up Fifth avenue in the heat of the afternoon. He was professing his undying devotion to the ground I walked on.

"Lu-" he began, before stifling his malapropism behind a fake cough.

"Ahem. Edith…"

I shifted my gaze over to where Douglas sat, embarrassingly frowzy in the humidity. Six years my senior, Douglas and his Fleming kin were about as bourgeoisie as they come, minor textile nobility through some quirk of inheritance. In years past he had courted my sister Lucille- or, rather, Lucille Irma Pulitzer, as it was the last name and subsequent fortune that had caught his fancy. Now that Lucille could hardly be courted conveniently, she keeping her quarters at Woodlawn, he had turned his attentions to me.

It had been to my deepest displeasure that I had seen his florid, sandy-haired form come loping through the drawing room at Augusta van Doren's luncheon earlier that day, headed straight for my side. After a tedious few cucumber sandwiches and cups of tea that turned thick in my throat, Douglas had maneuvered his way into being allowed to drive me home afterwards.

"Edith. Do smile; your melancholy is keeping the warm in, ha!"

Douglas had the irritating habit of adding a bark of laughter to every phrase he uttered. I turned, pasting a strictly lateral smile onto my face.

"That's better!" he mopped his brow. "Lucille-"

"Edith," I prompted through clenched teeth.

"Edith. Ha!" he drew forth from a damp pocket something that I recognized all too well- a black case, simple, just large enough to fill his meaty palm. The case opened with a sickening click of its neat steel clasp to reveal exactly what I had foreseen- a necklace, sterling silver, a minute chain with a litany of mirror-like pearl discs catching what little light penetrated the thick curtains.

I tried not to flinch as Douglas clumsily thrust the case in my direction, sending a score of dazzling pinpricks of light into my eyes. "This necklace-"

I raised my eyebrows and blinked rapidly. I'm sure I looked affected.

"Edith, this necklace pales in comparison to your beauty, and I had it engraved expressly for you, ha!" he burbled, clearly having rehearsed his speech one time too few. He lifted the thin chain from its satin bed and indicated the clasp, etched with _E.P._

I squinted at the swirling monogram. Something was fishy about the E.

"Edith-" (now he was just saying my name as much as possible to make up for his two slip-ups earlier. Oh, it was rich!) "-you know that I have asked your father for his express permission to court-"

I took a second glance at the monogram, and caught my breath. The E had clearly been formed from an L, with a shiny new slash run through its middle. I had recognized the necklace as a gift to Lucille from two Christmases past, but how it had found its way back into Douglas Haines Fleming's hands was beyond my powers of discernment.

Douglas, put off by my ire, started again. "Edith, you know full well that I have ardently admired you for these many years past-"

Lies.

"-and hope that you might accompany me to the ballet Wednesday next? I know how you love the ballet-"

"The opera."

"Beg pardon?"

"The opera," I said, more clearly. "_Lucille_ loves the ballet." I glared, most unladylike, across the coach at him, just daring him to make some weak comment about _loved;_ Lucille _loved_ the ballet.

Douglas remain silent for a moment. "_Cendrillon's _playing, then? Ha!"

"No. _Don Giovanni._ Scotti," I said, trying to keep my voice even.

"Then, Lucille, could-"

"EDITH," I said, surprisingly calm.

"Beg pardon?"

"Edith. My name is _Edith._ Edith. Louise. Pulitzer."

"Yes, but of course, my dear!" He jabbed the necklace in my direction again. "And this necklace was pieced together expressly for you, my dearest E-"

"That is a falsehood." I was deathly calm, the sea before a sou'wester. "Please stop the coach; I should like to walk."

"Walk, Miss Pulitzer? But surely the weather-"

"Alone," I added, rising and forcing my weight against the stubborn door in the most decorous way possible.

Douglas began to make some signal to the coachman, but I was already stepping out onto the rushing cobbles, slowing gradually, of Fifth Avenue, in what was sadly one of the more adventurous feats I had ever performed. As the carriage creaked to a crawl I thumped onto the street and took off for Madison Avenue, exactly the wrong direction to head home.

I marched, head down, bonnet providing ample blinders to shut out the squalor between Central Park East and the Harlem River. If anyone looked at me crossways I surely did not notice. I was irate, fuming like the filth in the gutters and the steam emptying from factory smokestacks. Any poise or decorum or coolness from the past few days had quite fled. That is, until I finally sighted the wide sweep of grass, rolling in hills, that marked my arrival at Woodlawn Cemetery.

I had a nice long talk with Lucille, hunched in the shade of the family mausoleum. I told her about going back to school, and how this was the last time I would ever do it; I told her of the scandalous French novels father tried to keep me from reading, the ones that I kept in my pillowcase regardless. I told her about how inane her younger siblings were, wishing after low diversions like a Union rally and rowdy newsboys. I told her about wanting to see the West, the red rocks of Utah, wide blue lakes and wider, bluer skies, just like those described in one of father's yellow articles.

When I felt a chill off the river, I bid my farewells, propped the wilting flowers up, and started my long trek home.

I hadn't registered, on my tramp uptown, just how far I'd gone. It always seemed so easy in a carriage, tedious because of Father's aversion to loud noises and bright lights, but no more. Even when I had walked through the Bronx earlier it had been far from sinister, the heat of the day, with nobody but mushy-looking fruit sellers manning their carts. Now with the evening came shifty sorts, people who I could only assume to be grifters and grafters and pickpockets, thugs and gangsters, confidence men and easy women. In my fern-green muslin party dress, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

I was hurrying down Jerome Avenue, keeping my eyes down. Then a great shape in a black coat, unseasonable, suspicious loomed up ahead and I ducked down a side street. I followed the light to the next most populous thoroughfare, but here I found a bustle of gaudy lights and the smell of cheap alcohol, something I had only read about in books. I tried to retrace my steps but somehow the sidestreet had been eaten up by the crowd. I dodged a hawker, leapt the gutter and back again, and continued in what I hope was a Southward direction.

All was going well until I passed in front of a public house. I couldn't tell you the name if you wanted it; all I heard was roaring laughter, the clink of glasses, and then the doors burst open directly in front of me.

The Other Half poured into the street, and one of its sons smacked right into me.

"Beggin' pardon miz-" he began, before propping his cap up to take a gander at me. "Say, Hal, it's a fine lady!"

Another scruffy fellow, ostensibly Hal, sauntered up to the first gawker. "Far from home is ya?" he drawled.

I blanched. Hal noticed. I must have been simply too easy a target for a little bit of iniquity. "Got any money on ya, love?"

I tried and failed to edge away. "Come on lady, won't be hard-"

"Edith!"

My name rang out across the din. Never had I been so relieved!

"Edith! There you are!"

The voice was without much accent, strange in these parts, though not in the least familiar. I turned to see a… person, male, young, dodging in and out of the crowd.

"Your boy come to find ya?" asked the first fellow.

I tried to smile confidently, but I'm sure it resembled more of a grimace.

"Edith!" the shouter finally popped through one last wall of people and threw and arm around my shoulder. I tried not to shriek, and cut a glance over to see none other than a_ newsie. _

Grey cap. Inkstained white longjohns. Suspenders. Curly hair. Well then. I cut another glance and stepped out on a limb.

"David!" I cried, putting as much real relief into my guess as possible.

"Thanks for finding my girl, men!" he beamed, tipping his cap to the two disappointed-looking pub crawlers. "If you'll excuse us…" And he linked his arm through mine, and pulled me down Anderson Ave, homeward bound.


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you and thank you for your praise, m'dears (MissT and Mermaid and Vinyl). It does a body good.

**I still don't own any Newsies. Sorry to disappoint.**

So there I was, gliding through the seedy underbelly of the Bronx, arm in arm with a _newsboy,_ harbinger of the future to The Other Half. As we dodged through the crowd, I tried my best to keep my eyes strictly forward. Presently, David guided us back onto Jerome Avenue, where the crowds thinned considerably and my panic slowly evaporated.

"So what brings you to the Bronx, Miss Pulitzer?" he asked, just as soon as we were shot of the sidestreets.

I flinched. _He knew._ I was doomed.

"I could ask you the same thing, Mr. Jacobs," I replied. That was somewhat uncomfortable: despite never exchanging two words, we knew each other's last names. As for me, I well remembered what Boots had said: _Davey Jacobs, brains o' the operation._ "I was visiting family."

"In the Bronx?" he looked exceedingly skeptical.

"Yes, Woodlawn," I said tartly.

"Oh, I'm… very sorry," he mumbled. There was a silence definitely verging on the awkward.

"I was running an errand for Crutchy," David suddenly spoke up. "He made friends with a bunch of Bronx newsies when he was convincing them to join the strike. He had a letter to give one of them, to give to someone else, or something like that, but he's still not walking very well since the Delancey brothers beat him up."

I decided not to pry about the Delancey brothers, who seemed quite sinister. "Do give him my regards," I said distractedly, mind already churning out tactful methods to send a good doctor by the lodging house on Duane. Then I realized just how cold and… what was the term? _Hoity-toity._ I sounded hoity-toity. I tried to redeem myself. "That was kind of you. Coming all the way up here for Crutchy, I mean."

David chuckled. "It's what we newsies do best- sticking together and working together, that is. Without each other, we're nothing."

"An admirable quality, camaraderie like that." No! Stupid! I sounded paternalistic. I grimaced in the darkness, grateful that Mr. Jacobs wouldn't be able to see my cringe without the help of a streetlight. I decided to change the subject to a much-needed area, perhaps saving my own hide. "And speaking of admirable sentiment, I cannot thank you enough for plucking me out of imminent danger like that. It was…" I trailed off, not wanting to verge on the histrionic.

"I'm just glad I happened to be passing by at just the right moment," David said gravely. "I heard the bar hecklers from across the street, put two and two together, and… well, I certainly didn't expect to be seeing you again so soon, Miss Pulitzer."

"Nor I you," I countered, sensing that he had some small chip on his shoulder concerning rich young ladies doing brash things and meriting a savior, "but I am so very grateful for your good timing and gallantry. I completely lost the time up, well-" I gestured North, towards Woodlawn- "-and lost Jerome in the dark on my way back."

"I'm glad I could be of service," he said, cracking a smile in the dark, I could only assume at my saccharine use of _so very grateful,_ and _gallantry,_ and… _fie,_ how was it that I couldn't for the life of me be frank and candid and honest in my speech around this newsboy? It was as if one of the prowling alley cats had pounced on my tongue and scampered off to the quay, never to been seen again.

David continued. I struggled to hold my tongue and think of something normal to say. "I'm curious to know what you thought of the lodging house, Miss Pulitzer-"

"Please, Edith is fine." There! I half regretted being so very bold, but I felt the ice of social conventions give a nice loud crack as I spoke my name.

"Well then, Edith," (here he stopped our progress, and turned half to face me), "what _did_ you think of your tour of the lodging house?"

He looked so earnest. He really wanted to know what I thought, the dear! "I don't think I'd ever seen anything like it before," I answered honestly. David resumed our walk as I spoke. "It amazes me that so many young men-"

"Boys," he snorted.

"-that so many _boys_ can live together peaceably, can work together and support themselves at such a young age!" before I knew it, I was gesticulating with my free hand. "The things that even the youngest must have seen and heard-! I suppose that I've read of it all in the papers, of the child laborers in the factories and mills here in the city, of the exploitation and- I just didn't expect the children to be so resilient in the face of that, I suppose. The exploitation, I mean." I ended lamely, quite suddenly realizing what treasonous talk was issuing from my mouth.

It was my father who supported taking advantage of those children. It was he who had covered it up for as long as he could manage. I felt a traitorous current plunging in my veins.

David, bless him, sensed my discomfiture. "I know the feeling. There's nothing quite like seeing how the Other Half Lives for the first time, is there?"

"In the flesh? Nothing on earth." I paused, running back over his last sentence. "I never thought that I would be so close to the _host of adventurous runaways from every State in the Union and from across the sea, whom New York attracts with a queer fascination-_ Riis, of course."

I blushed. What was I now, a show-off coxcomb who had to throw a moralizing quote into her most indecorous speech to show the full measure of her affectation? "Have you read it? _How the Other Half Lives,_ I mean?"

I cut my gaze over just in time to see David's face light up, then fall somewhat. "Just the parts they ran in the papers, piecemeal," he said regretfully. "The _Times_ still references it, what, nine years after its publication? And all the papers still run the engravings and photographs, to say nothing of the effect it had on improvements in the Lower East Side-"

"And that fact that Riis's plans for the reconstruction of tenements actually succeeded, in such a short time!"

"I still I think that it must be the best piece of journalism to come out of New York," he sighed. "Riis was a genius. If I could achieve half of what he did for the working people of this city…"

He trailed off, staring far past the impartial buildings on either side of us.

So David wanted to be a reporter? He _had_ been the one, at least I'd heard tell, that wrote up much of the newsies' homegrown leaflet, the one that rallied a crowd thousands strong to protest in front of the World building. Impressive. My bedraggled knight errant grew even more in my esteem.

An idea suddenly sparked in my head and flared out of my mouth before I had time to analyze it.

"I'll give you my copy of _How the Other Half Lives,_" I blurted. "The Dear knows how many times I've read it, and- "

"I'll borrow it," David corrected.

"No, I insist."

He stopped us once more and locked my gaze. _My gaze is locked with that of a newsboy, somewhere near- _I looked West, towards the expanse of High Bridge-_ somewhere near High Bridge, sometime past curfew! Help me help me, save me save me!_ Despite my brain leaping about like a wild thing, it was not an unpleasant thought.

"I don't take charity," this last with an edge to his voice.

The subject was clearly closed, and we walked in silence for a moment. I had just time to take notice of his arm, steadily supporting mine… _a very nice arm_ I thought, though I wasn't one to judge, when David spoke up again.

"It was brave of you, you know, visiting the lodging house. I would have been afraid to show my face."

I snorted in a fashion most unladylike. "Please! There was nothing brave about it."

He smiled in capitulation. "All right, maybe brave isn't the word I'm looking for; all I'm saying's it took guts. Gumption. It took…nerve?"

"Temerity!" I declared, suddenly (and frighteningly) bold.

"Audacity!" he countered.

"It took some _cheek,_" I finished. Then I voiced my burning question. "Did any of you know that we were… well, _who_ we were, when we first walked through the door?"

"I smoked it pretty quick, but I think most of the guys were starstruck," David said, giving his curls a cursory run-through with his free hand.

"And you didn't call us out on it! My debt to you grows by the minute."

"What's the harm in just looking? Let bygones be bygones and all that."

"I couldn't agree more," I murmured, closing my lips firmly against any explanations as to how unlike our father Constance, Herbert and I were; how we none of us approved of his treatment of the newsboys. Some things were better left unarticulated.

The walk South ended all too soon; the empty city blocks seemed to glide by with my hand resting on the capable arm of an eloquent newsboy, my feet keeping in quick step with the treads of his boots, and the apples of my cheeks aching slightly from smiling and laughing at what David Jacobs had to tell me about the carefree life of a newsie. Before I knew it, number eleven, Seventy-Third Avenue, with its imperious scrollwork and squinting windows, was watching us from down the block.

David, of course, needed no instruction as to which house was mine. He, like any devotee of the yellow press, clearly recognized the edifice as Joseph Pulitzer's castle, and steered me by the elbow up the walk and to the front door with the ease of someone accustomed to such pomp.

"Wait here," I commanded, not permitting the newsboy to consider ducking and running before I could confer to him my personal copy of _How the Other Half Lives._ I used the same voice that I did when speaking to an unruly Herbert; it served me well, and David was still standing obediently under the lintel when I tiptoed back across the parquet from the library, brandishing the prized book.

"It's just a loan," he reminded me from under lowered eyelids.

"Thank you again," I said firmly. Not knowing how to end the encounter, I stuck out a hand- in hindsight it was mannish and perhaps a bit uncouth, but David Jacobs was the last person I would expect to censure the action.

We shook hands and then he was gone, disappearing down the avenue as the bells of St. Francis' across the park struck the midnight hour. I shut the heavy door against the sound, reminding me of my stupidity this afternoon. I had been rash, I had nearly been robbed outside of a backalley bar, and I had behaved like some common street girl, laughing loudly and bantering with a scruffy newsie, one of my father's lowest employees. The sticky night air, thick with unmentionable city smells, was suddenly replaced with the cultivated chill of the Pulitzer home, the bells now only a subconscious ringing in my ears. It was then I noticed how my dress stuck to my back, how my hair had escaped its tidy coil to form lank ribbons plastered to my temples. I'm sure I looked a fright; I stared at my reflection in the glass inside the parlor for an ageless minute, shocked and thoughtless, until I managed to end the vacant reverie with a quick shake of my head, expelling summer nights, newsboys, gaslit streets, and tousled curls.

I had one day left in New York, one day that would certainly not involve newsies.

I smiled secretly as I slid under my starched sheets. One day was not enough time for a certain Mr. Jacobs to read and return _How the Other Half Lives._

He would just have to keep it.


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you ladies for reading! Nearly done! Mermaid: yes yes chemistry good. Let us hope that it precipitates a satisfactory ending! MissT- effortless? Oh you flatterer. But yes, I quite agree that this Davey is A Hunk Davey, not poor goob Davey like in the first scene he's in. Vinyl- David Moscow=awesome. And also grew up to be Vigo Mortensen.

***Insert pithy disclaimer here***

Friday, August third, 1899 dawned muggy and preternaturally tense.

Breakfast was thick oatmeal, great efforts from the kitchen having been done away with now that only three of the usual seven Pulitzers were at home. When I came downstairs and saw the wide-eyed looks on Constance and Herbert's faces, I could hardly choke down a fraction of my food.

They were planning an escape.

The rest of the day was spent deep in the folds of winter coats pungent with the somnolent scent of mothballs and endless seas of white chemises and stockings, watching the maids swaddle each in translucent paper before packing it into one of the trunks yawning wide on my bedroom floor. I was leaving.

Still, eight o'clock- dusk, the earliest my siblings might abscond- found me in the shadows of the empty kitchen, hearth still warm and clean dishes softly steaming from the dinner that had been so recently cleared away. I pressed my spine against the wall, willing the clock to stop its ticking.

At last, the telltale squeak of the dumbwaiter signaled the arrival of my quarry. As Constance and Herbert materialized form the impossibly tiny hole in the wall, I emerged from my hiding spot and seized both quite suddenly by the shoulder, eliciting a yelp from Constance and something tantamount to a swear from Herbert.

"If you think I'm letting you run off to a union rally across the city at this hour, you have another think coming," I whispered.

"But Edith," sighed Herbert, eyes as big as saucers, "the newsies want us to be there!"

"Kid Blink," breathed Constance, as if this was sufficient explanation.

I stared at them a moment longer, willing them to just give up already, when a creak of the third board over outside in the hall alerted us to the fact that _someone was coming._

I made a snap decision. "Out," I hissed. I didn't need to tell them twice, and before I knew it we were crouched against the carriage house behind the mansion. I prayed that nobody would notice the unlocked back door.

The night air held something strange, a sharp bite like a storm boiling up from the West. It made the back of my neck prickle something fierce.

"Come with us, Edith," beseeched Constance. Her curls were immaculate, much different than their slovenly appearance… how many mornings ago was that? Two, four, seven? It had seemed an instant and a lifetime ago that we first found Boots lying on the cobbles outside of our carriage.

And now, I was about to go out dancing with newsboys.

"Fine," I sighed, feigning indifference when in fact my heart had just done its best to beat straight through the starched linen of my blouse.

"You're not dressed for a rally," Constance whispered critically.

I jerked the pins from the spinsterly knot of hair on top of my head. "Then fix it."

The walk to 21 Suffolk Street, more commonly known as Gardner Hall, was quick, furtive, and more of a run; the sun was just finishing its descent behind the forest of buildings, but already the drunken feeling of a hot fast loud summer night swirled around us. The hall itself was somewhat ramshackle, lacking the certain graces I had come to expect from concert-type venues such as itself. Still, inside, three tiers of musty seats upholstered in velvet piebald from years of use held enough newsboys to make up for its lackluster façade. The election of leaders and Union meeting had just been adjourned, and a motley collection of musicians were tuning up on the stage recently vacated by the night's speakers.

I was at a loss, adrift in the roiling sea of unwashed faces, strangers all. Thankfully, Constance spotted her one-eyed bounder from across the theater, and seized Herbert by his collar and me by a hank of skirt.

The Manhattan newsies seemed to be in the middle of a massive celebration, hooting and whooping loud enough to drown out the scratch of an unrosined bow on string. When they collectively spotted us, after some degree of surprise, pats on the back and even a few untoward pecks on the cheek surged our way like locusts.

"Great balls a' fire, I'm the Vice President!" hollered a giddy Racetrack Higgins from his perch atop the shoulders of his compatriots, twirling a congratulatory rose by the stem. "Pulitzer goils, come give your respects to the second in command!"

It was as if we were bosom buddies and hugely overwhelming. Boots and Herbert were shouting over the ruckus about something or other; an affectionate scuffle threatened to grow into a brawl. The music screeched to a start and Blink whirled Constance out onto the dance floor, which was already teeming with dancers. I edged back, entirely out of my element, until a steadying hand caught my elbow.

_It isn't._

It was.

"You'll read about it in the morning, but one James G Neill's president," said David, steering me over to a vacant pair of seats. "Race's vice, as I'm sure you've figured, and Jack's Manhattan's Captain. We've also resolved to speak with the newspapermen over the tax on the evening papers, and affiliate with other labor unions."

"You'll make a reporter yet," I smiled wryly.

"Speaking of." David handed a familiar volume my way. "I devoured it overnight."

"It's yours," I protested, scooting backwards.

He frowned disarmingly. "Miss Pul- _Edith,_ I couldn't. It's a matter of pride." He thrust it into one of my gesticulating hands.

"Take the damn book," I muttered, profane in my fluster. I batted it back his way, fighting a blush at my absolute cluelessness as to how to handle this well.

He saved the book from falling onto the dusty hardwood. "I insist-"

"Davey!" a blue-clad newsie with dark hair (Mush? Bumlets? I mentally sorted through their descriptions in the _Sun_) locked him in a skirmish from two rows back. "Come dance! Miss Pulitzer wants to dance! She's just too genteel to tell ya!" the blue newsie cuffed us both affectionately before twirling a graceful, dour-looking girl out onto the floor.

"I can't dance too well," he frowned.

_My escape!_ "Neither can I," I declared, standing up and proffering a hand in the most gentlemanly of ways. "That is why we must improve."

David slid _How the Other Half_ Lives into a pocket and swept us both onto the floor.

I have never been good at describing such situations with any degree of calm, so you must forgive me for not taking better note of dancing through the night with various newsboys, one newsboy in particular. My hair, let down for the first time in a good decade, provided the perfect disguise. I was just another New York girl skipping through knots of newsies, crowds and clumps and mobs of gleeful newsies, on the arm of a grinning junior reporter determined to keep the right beat to the fast pace of a reel.

I was inches, a mere misstep, from begin trampled by the overjoyed feet and irrepressible music of the other half, and couldn't recall ever being happier.

Hours later, a veritable mob of Manhattan newsies boiled about around the corner from the alley behind the house at number eleven, Seventy-Third Avenue, waving last goodbyes. They had escorted us home, talking and laughing. I had absorbed it all, walking shyly next to David Jacobs and suddenly wishing that I wasn't boarding the morning's first train North.

Constance paused in the doorway, flushed and beaming, waving her hanky at Blink. Herbert jumped and waved before darting inside, more tired than he'd like to admit. Both were probably already planning imminent trips out to Duane, duplicitous trips, or errands that brought them past certain corners all throughout the island that might promise a meeting with one of their newsies. I had no such luxury, and lingered on the gravel drive once the other two had begun their silent glide through the kitchen and up to bed.

I cast a glance nothing short of wistful towards the alleyway's end, where the jostling shadows had just disappeared.

I let a wee sigh escape from my mouth.

Then a shape, indistinct, certainly human, vaguely backlit appeared around the corner.

It was just for a moment, hardly long enough to confirm the fact that the shadow wore a nicely pressed blue shirt with pinstripes, smelled of pomade, old theater seats, and warm newsprint, had a mop of curls and dancing blue eyes. It would be impossible to tell from the distance and light that the shadow was a mediocre dancer, but made up for his lack of skill with enthusiasm. It was too far to see the bulge of a book, forgotten by the shadow but not by myself, in his left pocket.

It was not too far, however, to make out the gesture the shadow made. Unless I was mistaken, the shadow blew a kiss my way before melting into the blackness.

_One more to go, kidlets! Please do project what will happen._


	7. Epilogue

Thanks for sticking with this story, guys! It means a lot- especially those of you who lasted through the great hiatus. Troopers, you lot. MissT, Mermaid, and Vinyl especially!

**This is the epilogue, so it don't need a disclaimer.**

That was the last time I saw David Jacobs.

At first light the next morning, no more than a few hours since I had seen that shadowy figure disappear into the night, I woke and sat statue-still as a maid bound my hair in a tight coiffure for the long train ride ahead. She made no mention of the unusual numbers of rats' nests in my locks, nor the smell of cigarettes and cheap wine; neither did she remark on the back door being unlocked this morning.

I kissed the foreheads of Constance and Herbert, still deeply sleeping off the effects of late-night revelry. With that I followed my trunks out into the waiting coach and we rolled in silence the countless blocks to Grand Central Station.

From the station, I boarded a train for the North. As I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of a Sunday morning, watching the Alleghany roll past in my periphery, my thoughts strayed back to the night before. I had rarely felt so connected, so (good heavens, I was sounding like the heroine of a penny dreadful) _alive._ The other half may have lived differently from what I was accustomed to, entrenched as they were in a vicious cycle of poverty and closed doors, but my word, they knew how to let go and enjoy themselves. Closing my eyes I could almost conjure the aroma of a stale theater and feel the dizzying whirl of the last mazurka of the night, danced with exceptional energy if not skill by a sea of newsies and their admirers. I nearly got to the part where I looked up from the crowds into the grinning face of my gallant knight in shining armor when I sat up and gave my head an equine shake.

Nostalgia, I chided myself, was not befitting a woman of my age and position. I had a name to uphold.

But nonetheless, I would never forget that one night in the thick of the other half, or the person who brought me there.

After that last summer, I rarely returned to New York, and only saw number eleven under the cheerful light of Christmastime. South was no longer my trajectory- I went East to the Continent, then as far West as propriety could take me when I had seen all there was to see of England, France, and Italy. I took the grand tour of Europe; I persisted in reading those French novels my father had tried to confiscate. I still had the quintet of the best New York papers delivered to me every morning on my breakfast tray.

I took notice, a few years after my graduation, of an article or two in the _Sun_ written by one D. Jacobs, and smiled quietly at the straightforward prose and opinionated, convincing paragraphs. _You'll make a reporter yet_, I had said years ago an ocean away. I had been right.

I followed David's progress through the ranks at the _Sun,_ watched with lightly scandalized glee as he took a brief turn in the City room at the _Banner._ When the _Banner_ folded, he published a fantastic account of its president and workers, as always staunchly supportive of New York's working people. After that, his stories became more and more infrequent and increasingly important; I had a feeling that Mr. Jacobs was on his way to being granted a position as roving reporter, covering only the most vital of breaking news.

In October 1911, twelve years and two months after my summer week among the newsboys, Father died. I idly wondered if any of the newsboys involved in the strike more than a decade past were glad of the news; my intuition told me that by now the animosity had been forgiven and forgotten. As the funeral procession slowly trundled up Jerome Avenue (a route familiar to my eyes and mind), I thought I spotted a head of curls and flashing blue eyes walking on the crowded sidewalks, one arm looped through that of a well-dressed woman and the other keeping close watch on a little boy. On my way back to the coach from the family tomb, I was quite suddenly brought back to another day at Woodlawn by an unseasonably warm wind. My black crepe was a far cry from fern-colored muslin, but a cemetery is one place that changes little for all the passage of time.

Two months after that, I was married out West, where I had been spending more and more time as the new century progressed. The _Sun's _Moore-Pulitzer bans seemed to me to be penned by a familiar hand, but I made no comment of it to William over our morning coffee. It might have been just my imagination.

The sapphire waters of Tahoe rippled no more than one hundred feet off the patio, and the sun, still fierce in the late December morning, sparked off the crystalline snow draped over the rocky shore.

William was bent over one of the papers, lips moving silently as he absorbed the world's news. "They've reached the South Pole, did you see that yet?"

I glanced up from the blue of the lake, not having opened the neatly folded _Times_ before me. "No, do tell."

"I'll let you read it for yourself in a moment," he said, sipping coffee through his mustache and looking back down at the photograph of Amundsen and his fellows posing on a field of purest white. "This correspondent- Jacobs, his name is- writes a nice story, don't you think?"

FIN


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